Indubitably, with the unfortunate and shocking assassination of Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the most impactful chapter of Japanese politics in the post-World War II era has come to an abrupt end, while giving birth to several pricking questions pertaining to the longevity of the impact of his legacy on the texture of Japanese economic and foreign policies in the coming days – and decades. For a very long period, from the end of World War II to the start of this millennium, the Yoshida Doctrine tightly wrapped the strategic intent of Japanese policies. Shigeru Yoshida, the first postwar Japanese prime minister, was the chief architect of the doctrine that influenced subsequent generations of the Japanese political leadership to focus on economic development, refrain from militarizing and adhere to the pacifist constitution.

Abe was the first Japanese leader who made a conscious effort to put Japan on a different trajectory, away from the Yoshida Doctrine, in the domain of economic and foreign policy. His signature three-pronged economic policy "Abenomics" – monetary easing, fiscal stimulus and structural reforms – and his visibly hawkish approach in the domain of defense and foreign policy are likely to have deep imprints on the Japanese outlook for many decades. During his second eight-year stint, the longest for any Japanese prime minister in the postwar period, in reaction to China’s growing influence in the East and South China Sea and simmering territorial disputes between Beijing, he strived to make tangible changes in the pacifist constitution that prohibits the country from acquiring military forces. Factually speaking, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) comprising Japan, the United States, Australia and India, was practically his brainchild to keep Chinese assertiveness in check in Asia-Pacific and the Indo-Pacific – another term coined by him in his 2007 speech to the Indian Parliament to describe the strategic space that stretches from Asia-Pacific to the Indian Ocean.

The China factor was quite dominant in his foreign policy. Apart from joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Abe played a pivotal role in strengthening the partnerships and cooperation with regional powers like India, Indonesia and Vietnam and nonregional players like Britain and the European Union to ensure the peace and stability in the region. In fact, the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) concept was the major plank of his efforts to counterbalance China's ever-growing political influence in the region. Despite retiring from the premiership and party leadership, his weighty presence was still quite palpable in Japanese politics and decision-making.

His successor, Fumio Kishida – who was groomed by Abe for a long time as his defense and foreign minister over two different stints – despite having a different, rather dovish approach to foreign policy, is not expected to deviate from the basic elements of the Abe doctrine. Yes, he desists from openly naming China in his statements and he believes in "humane diplomacy," but his commitment and passion toward the Quad and the FOIP are serious. Last month, at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue gathering in Singapore, Kishida reiterated that Abe's doctrine with regard to the Indo-Pacific is the main reference point of his operative strategic frame and declared it as the main nucleus of the global economy in the coming days. Certainly, Kishida is not a China hawk at all, however, it does not mean that we should expect any tangible shift in the spectrum of Japanese foreign policy. It is also true that Kishida, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, seriously rebutted Abe’s advocacy for hosting the U.S. nuclear weapons as a deterrent and it is also true that he has a soft spot for the middle class and wants to expand it by introducing the redistributive policies, however, he is not likely to drift away from the fulcrum of the Abe doctrine. Such deviations are natural and they are always observed with the change of personalities at the helm of affairs. Unlike most of his predecessors who had very short stints as Japanese prime ministers – from 1885 till today, Japan has had 64 prime ministers with an average tenure of just two years. The perpetually fractionated Diet, which had always remained divided into small splinter and pressure groups, was responsible for this 137-year-old game of musical chairs being played among Japanese politicians. Abe also forcefully broke this continuous chain of musical chairs with an assertiveness that was never exhibited by any of his predecessors. Despite the long list of scandals that continuously hovered around his long stint, Abe never caved in to the pressure from scandals about his leanings toward nepotism and putting indirect pressure on the bureaucrats to bypass the rule and regulations. Nothing could stop him from working, except his ill health due to chronic ulcerative colitis that eventually forced him to seek retirement. He was certainly an atypical prime minister for Japan. For the last two decades, Abe was perhaps the most dominant figure in Japanese politics and his footprints will last at least two decades more there. He has influenced the mindset of Japan so much that it will take years for the successive political leadership to change the trajectory of Japanese politics away from the Abe doctrine.